An election Sunday to select a new board of directors of the North Bay Food Bank brings to an end a year of controversy surrounding the local institution.

Lawyers for the two sides involved in the issue – the current sitting board and a board elected in November 2011 – issued a news release Thursday announcing an agreement had been reached to end the legal action.

The annual general meeting Sunday will be the first for the food bank since the dispute began last year, when several former directors – Ted Hargreaves, Marty Martinello and Dick Dinnes – announced that they had been elected at an annual general meeting.

Executive director Ellen White was dismissed and chairman Joe Tranter and White were barred from the premises of the food bank.

The agreement was “entered into without any admission of fault or blame and prevents the parties from commenting, in public or private, on the subject matters involved in the litigation,” says the news release, jointly issued by Davenport Law Group, representing Tranter and Birnie Law Firm, representing Hargreaves, Martinello and Dinnes.

Jonathane Ricci, the lawyer representing Tranter, said he was “very happy” with the resolution.

“Our main goal from the beginning was to get the North Bay Food Bank running in a democratic way, with open annual meetings and a community-elected board of directors to operate it,” Ricci said.

He said he will attend Sunday’s meeting.

Former North Bay mayor Stan Lawlor will chair the meeting Sunday at the Davedi Club.

“I was asked because I had not been involved in the dealings” on behalf of either party, Lawlor said.

He said he was “not privy to any of the details” of the agreement, and his role is “simply to take neither side and to get a board in place.”

Nominations for the board will be accepted until Friday at 3 p.m.

Membership applications are available through the food bank, either by visiting the food bank at 1319 Hammond Street or by calling 705-495-3290.

Any member of the food bank can vote on the make-up of the new board. Anyone who wishes to vote has until 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

Lawlor said no one is prohibited from running for a seat on the board.

The battle for control of the food bank began almost a year ago, four months after Tranter was elected chairman. He had called for a forensic audit of the operation, but two days after the audit began the former directors announced that they had been elected at an annual general meeting.

The food bank has continued to operate throughout the controversy. It is open Mondays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 to 8 p.m.